The Shade Agents of the Omega Division
by MasteroftheLocust
Summary: Eight Division Agents must fight their way through a destroyed New York to look for the cure of a deadly disease that has swept the state, called the Dollar Flu, will they save the U.S.? or die trying?
1. Chapter 1

_**Transmission: sleeper agents of SHD, please activate immediately, imminent threat incoming.**_

 _ **...activation of Squadron Omega in progress...sending signal...done**_

 _ **Sending rendezvous location...done**_

 _ **Locating agents...done/ State: New York/ City: Manhattan**_

The beginning of winter. The first snow fall that we all could remember from our childhood was beautiful. The runny noses, the cold fingers, and wet boots with snow up to our ankles. As children you never really could see winter as a bad thing. Except for when you first got the flu. Coughing, sneezing, even throwing up if it got too serious. However, you never could have imagined getting so sick, being in so much pain just before christmas, that you would actually die. Blood vessels popping, vomit covering your own clothes, blood filling your lungs as you drown and gasp for air.

That's what christmas for us was like, death, destruction, and confusion as the dollar flu swept over new york, a disease so advanced, that it would mutate before your immune system or any anti-bacterial medicine could catch up to it. Leaving you to suffer as you take in your last painful breaths before you leave this world.

Hell on Earth, I always pictured it differently, I never could have imagined that it would end up like this. Burning cars, screaming women and children, it was horrible, I didn't want to be activated, I wanted to help my mother out of the city, out of the state, to somewhere safe, but there was nothing I could do, except regroup with my old team that I had briefly met during our introduction and coronation into the Shade Agent Program. Grabbing My ACR assault rifle from my closet I popped a thirty round magazine into it then threw the rest of my ammo into my Backpack.

On my shoulder attached to a sling, hung my trusty 870 Express twelve gauge shotgun. And already in it's holster sat a 1911 racked and ready for use. I kept extra water bottles and some snacks in my pack as well. It was still cold out, so i grabbed my heavy black jacket that covered my gray hoodie over a T-Shirt that I would constantly wear. My denim Jeans were enough to keep my legs warm. I threw a scarf on as well, just to be sure incase it got colder out, or we would be out there around night time. Finally I put some black combat gloves on that had an extra layer of wool in them to keep my fingers warm, and a pair of black hiking boots to top everything off. Opening my front door, I grabbed my Russian hunter's hat on my way out. The rabbit fur on the inside, would keep my ears and cheeks warm if needed, but I kept the flaps connected to the top of my head for now.

As I took a few steps out of my house, I exhaled while I took around my small town that had been destroyed due to the chaos. My breath wisped around in the freezing air, like a spirit making it's way to the heavens. "Fuck..." I mumbled to myself before continuing on my way to the rendezvous point. Bishop's church to be exact, our combat medic. Go figure, right? Like playing the cleric in a good ol' game of Dungeons and Dragons. I figured I was burning daylight if I kept standing there admiring mother nature's' wrath on humanity. So I picked up my sorry feet, and began jogging to the church. Hopefully God had an answer to all this.

It didn't take me too long to arrive at my destination. A good fifteen minute jog to the church wasn't too bad, but I was getting out of breath. Man, I'm out of shape. Lucky for me, no Rioters, Rikers, or looters made themselves present as I made my trip to the church. When I opened the front two doors, I calmly made my way inside. The church was pretty nice and still had a heating system that worked, and could be used for our hideout.

"Hey hey! Welcome. you must be Tyler," A young man exclaimed as he walked up to me. He seemed to be in his low twenties just like me. Bishop was his callsign if I remembered correctly, but his actual name was Brayden. "Welcome to Christ's Word Center, I'm currently waiting for everyone else to show up at the moment, but uh, go ahead and make yourself comfortable, there's plenty of chairs...or ya know, the floor if you prefer that."

Brayden had been wearing a pretty thick trench coat, which seemed to be made out of wool. He looked nerdy, but at least he was smart. The rest of his attire consisted of black jeans, and a dark pair of combat boots, followed with a nice white shirt and vest underneath his coat, and a flat cap to top it all off.

"Jesus, you look like someone cosplaying as a random civi in the U.K." I replied with a chuckle. Seems he was used to jokes as well, since he chuckled with me.

"Well I just happen to enjoy and admire this particular type of clothing" he replied back with a smile on his face. His thick glasses added onto even more of his nerdiness, it was almost too much to bear, but I could put up with it. I guess it wasn't TOO bad. (so much salt…)

Tyler sat down on one of the many benches that surrounded the entire inside of the church. It wasn't anything fancy. Just your typical Catholic church you'd see in the suburbs. Nice paint colors, decent sized chandeliers that hung from the ceilings, and the occasional stained glass windows with pictures of Jesus or the apostles.

"So who else are we waiting for?" I decided to ask.

"You're here, I'm here. That's it so far. I heard that our teammates, Thresher and Rupture, are on their way" Bishop turned his head and looked at the altar for a second, "wanna help me get some gear out?"

"Sure, I've got nothing better to do" so I stood up and set down my backpack and my big guns, keeping my handgun fastened to my hip just in case. As we made our way towards the altar, Bishop moved a small cabinet out of the way, leading into a small corridor with an old wooden door at the end. "Whoa, is this where you ta-"

"DON'T, don't you dare pull a catholic priest joke or i swear on my great grandmother's grave, YOU'LL be the first to get doused in holy water" I couldn't help but giggle as he knew exactly where I was going with my statement.

The corridor was fairly short, and the door was kinda small, meant for hidden places. Bishop swiftly unlocked the old door with some keys he had attached to his belt, before pushing the door open and revealing the inside. Apparently, Mr. Brayden here had a mini fallout shelter in his own church. The place was filled with space heaters, canned food, hundreds of packages of water, and some MRE's. However, next to the front door were two very large duffle bags that seemed too filled to actually be zipped shut.

"Here, I'll grab one, you grab the other." We both leaned down and grabbed a duffle bag by the shoulder straps, hoisting it up and dragging them out of the room and onto a large table near the alter. The bags were ridiculously heavy, I unzipped the one I grabbed and took a look inside. "Holy shit..."

"Grab whatever you think you need" he said and started to unzip his duffle bag, grabbing some interesting looking gadgets, and laying them out nicely on the table. The first few things i grabbed however, was a grenade launcher with some green tubes that were labeled with some sort of healing instructions.

"What are these?" I asked curiously

"Oh those? They're healing fields, you shoot them next to teammates or close to yourself and the gas applies a numbing agent to pain, it's not enough to knock out muscle movement or completely get rid of the pain, but it's pretty helpful in dire situations, or if you get hit in combat. If I were you, I'd grab the defib set, it shocks you for a moment to keep your adrenaline going, so you don't go unconscious...or ya know, die." That got me thinking, they would be pretty useful. Bishop was our main combat medic, but it wouldn't hurt to have two people using some medic gear. Next to the defib gas tubes, I found some standard grenades for the launcher. They'd be useful for eliminating clumps of enemies or light armor, so I grabbed five of each.

Almost instantly afterwards, the two of us heard a knock on the door. Another member it seemed, or probably someone just looking for shelter as they saw the lights on inside.

"I got it" I said in a more of a monotone, before making my way to the large double doors that served as an entrance to the church. As I opened up one of the two doors, on the other side was an unfamiliar face that greeted me, however, this particular young man had a bagel in his hand with cream cheese filling smushed in between. He seemed to be chewing, what I could only assume was a piece of his breakfast.

The stranger smiled at me and waved his hand somewhat in a quick motion, on the shoulder of his backpack the orange glowing ring showed, meaning that he was a Division Agent like me and Brayden. "Sup" was all he could muster with his mouth full.

"Uh, hey?"

"Yeah, so could you let us in? It's cold as fuck out here," said another voice behind the first stranger. Another man showed himself through the door. I remembered him. His name was Ben, but everyone called him Rupture. He was a bit taller than bagel man, but he wasn't as lanky as him, having a bit more muscle mass to his build.

"Yeah, my bad" I said stepping aside, "Bishop, we've got some visitors"

"Hm?" the priest asked before looking up and seeing the other two teammates. "Ah! Chris! Ben! You guys made it here ok! Any word from Pat or Bame?"

"No not yet" Chris said still chewing on his toasted bagel "Last I heard from them, they said they were picking up Michael downtown, and to meet us here"

"That's a pretty bad part of this neighborhood, don't you think they'll run into trouble?" Ben was right, even though it was still morning the most trouble we could get into would be a few looters or a pack of rioters, but nothing too serious. The part of town those three were in,was much worse. Rikers patrolled areas over there, and there have been sightings of Cleaners in that general direction as well. It wasn't the ideal place to be after nightfall. "Then again, this whole city isn't too well-off at the moment."

"Should we go down there and make sure they'll get here ok?" I finally decided to ask.

"No, our orders are to stay here and regroup, besides, we would have gotten a distress call if there was an issue they couldn't handle alone" Bishop explained before grabbing an extendable riot shield, and attaching it to his left arm, testing it out a few times to make sure everything worked properly.

Chris then reached into the bag and pulled out two ice picks with clips on the bottom of the handles, before attaching them to his belt, and letting them swing around. Rupture followed suit, and pulled out what looked like a deployable cover unit, and one of the seeking mines they taught us about in briefing. Chris on the other hand, grabbed what looked like one of those portable electronic turrets, and a small recon drone.

Suddenly Bishop's wrist watch started collecting static with a voice in the background, it sounded a lot like our division leader.

"Bi..op, rend...ouz on our po...ion" It was hard to understand his voice, but the intent seemed clear, Brayden quickly adjusted the tuning on his watch, we were all listening now. "We're pinned down near the mall, we've got Riker's and Cleaners on us right now, and we are outnumbered, how fast can you get here!?"

Brayden pressed the button on his watch, activating it's microphone ability before speaking into it. "Send us your coordinates, I've got Elite, Rupture and Thresher here with me, we'll be there in no time!"

Bishop grabbed his guns that were left in one of the duffle bags, a Kriss Vector with a holographic site and a foregrip, along with a SRS bullpup sniper he had stashed in there. His side arm was already attached to him, which happened to be a Sig Sauer 320, though it looked a bit smaller, it must have been the compact or the carry version.

Thresher however had a different set-up. He carried an RFB DMR that seemed to have some sort of thermal scope on it, followed with an angled grip and a suppressor. His secondary was an MP7 with a red dot with an extended magazine. It appeared Chris was ready for battle too. His clothes consisted of a dark grey hoodie with black overalls that went underneath it, his black coat kept him warm, along with his dark grey combat gloves, and black combat boots.

Rupture on the other hand was just wearing a sweater, some khaki pants, a pair of sneakers, and light tactical gloves.

"You're kidding, right?" I asked.

Rupture stopped, then locked gazes with me.

"What? I didn't have a chance to change." a smirk crept across his face, "You want me to change right now? Is that something you'd like?"

"Um, no." I replied.

Rupture didn't look dangerous, but his gear told everyone other wise, his vest had several intimidating looking sniper rounds sticking out of them, and the Dragunov that slung around his back must have been the rifle that fired them. He too carried an SMG of sorts: a small Beretta 93R with a suppressor on it.

Bishop looked up at the team and nodded his head, "everyone ready?" he asked politely waiting for a response from everyone. Rupture nodded his head silently.

Thresher smiled and gave a thumbs up "Let's go get 'em."

Then there was me, I thought about it for a moment before opening my mouth. "I'm ready."

Brayden seemed pleased with the answer before racking the slide on his SMG "Ok, time to kill some criminals"


	2. Chapter 2

_**Locating agents...done, transmitting radio chatter...processing...done**_

 _ **Setting waypoint to agents Elite, Bishop, Thresher, and Rupture...done**_

 _ **Syncing agents' HUD...counting ammunition...scanning equipment...done**_

The sound of gunfire coming from downtown was unmistakable. The crackling sound was almost similar to that of fireworks, but there was a distinct sound between automatic fire and tiny bottle rockets shooting into the sky that anyone could tell the difference between. The sun was still in the sky, shining down onto the frozen streets, making the snow glimmer. Small patches of snow were either white, or a dark brown color from the dirt and asphalt of the roads that the white fluffy blanket covered. The sloshing of everyone's wet boots echoed off of the brick buildings in the empty town, it seemed pretty eerie to me, almost like we were anticipating something to happen. That's when the gunfire started to get more rapid, and much louder. "Jesus...I hope they're ok" I said a bit concerned for our leader's well being.

"Don't worry about Bame and Pat, those two together in a firefight are a deadly combo," Bishop said confidently, "They once took on a small battalion of Last Man Battalion units in southern Manhattan by themselves and walked away with minimal injuries, they even managed to make it out of the Dark Zone alone." The Last Man battalion was not a military organization, however, they acted a lot like it, often using military tactics and strategies, along with having ranks and specialized weapons. They did have quite a few vehicles however, helicopters and armored cars with large machine guns weren't uncommon to see if you got too close to their camps.

"The Dark Zone?!" I asked surprised, "I thought they quarantined the DZ months ago!"

"They did" I heard Rupture mutter, "I almost didn't make it out" I looked at Ben a bit gloomily, he seemed a bit upset about remembering something so tragic, that could have almost ended his life. I've heard that the DZ was supposedly the first place the outbreak started in, rumors say it was deeper somewhere in New York, but the DZ was quarantined off first. When it happened, hundreds of people were cut off and left to either die or try to survive on the inside, including just about every faction inside Manhattan. Cleaners, Rikers, LMB soldiers, and just straight up looters. Any civilians that were left inside, better have prayed to God that they get out ok.

Focusing on the trip ahead of us, I let out a small sigh, making my breath appear like smoke in the frosty air. The walk there didn't take too long, but now that they were closer, the team took off in a jog, then to a run, finally into a sprint, as the group was now rushing to assist their leaders. Their reason for now sprinting? The entire mall was on fire.

"Bishop? Where the hell are you?! The entire fucking building is on fire, we're going to get roasted if we don't get help fast!" Bame shouted through their comms, with Bishop soon to reply.

"We just got here sir! I'm going in with Elite to assist you guys"

"What about Rupture and Thresher?" Pat yelled through his comms, seemingly sounding upset as well, and for a good reason too.

"I'm getting them up high so they can give us overwatch, and a secure way out" Bishop told his superiors while directly looking at the two scouts of the team. Once they both took the hint they nodded and ran to a small building complex, finding a way to the top of the structure, and setting up their DMR's on the roof. "Tyler, let's go" Bishop ordered, as he kicked open the doors to the inside of the mall.

Everything was glowing red, whether it be the food courts, or the clothing shops, it all was set ablaze, the smell of burning fabrics, and plastic got to our noses. We instantly started coughing. "Fuckin- *Cough cough* hell man!" instinctively I put on my gas mask, trying to make it easier for me to breathe. It was still difficult, but at least now I wasn't suffocating.

A group of Cleaners were too busy burning a toy store with their flamethrowers to notice that we entered the building. Bishop, without hesitation, raised his SMG and squeezed the trigger, sending a quick wave of bullets in their direction. The Priest downed two of them but he ran out of ammo and needed to reload. "Shit!" he shouted as we took cover from the other two cleaners he missed.

"Hang on! I've got this!" I shouted, raising myself above cover while aiming down my sights. My rifle was naked, but it would do for now, especially since we are in close combat at the moment. I didn't hold down my trigger, rather I burst fired, to try and conserve somewhat of my ammo, even though I held quite a lot in my backpack.

The Last two Cleaners dropped and I pulled up my wrist to use the comms, "Sir? Can you give us your location? The mall is pretty big and we don't have time to search every single st- WHOA" a flaming piece of wood smashed to the floor, coming from the roof above me. The building wouldn't last long, they probably only had about twenty minutes before the whole damn thing came down on top of them.

Bame spoke up through the comms and replied with "Second floor near the petshop! You can't miss it! We are under fire, and caught in crossfire between a group of Rikers and Cleaners! Hang on...I think I see one of you! Are you wearing a rainbow backpack?!"

I shook my head in confusion and surprise, "Sir we haven't even got to the second floor yet, is it another agent?"

"It appears so! He's stuck out here with us, might as well help each other out, you guys need to get here! Double time!" Bame shouted before switching off his comms.

"What's going on?" Bishop asked as we jogged next to each other, now making our way up to our leaders.

"Sounds like another agent is here as well, looks like we gotta get him out as well," I told him trying to think what in the hell is going on. Bishop even gave me a looked surprise before shaking his head and breaking into a sprint with me.

We ran as fast as we could, dodging large patches of fire that encircled certain areas, and falling pieces of lumber that got too close. When we reached the firefight zone we immediately took cover next to the extra agent that showed up. He looked at us through a pair of sunglasses and his gas mask that had a black base with orange stripes that ran along the outline.

"Who are you?" I asked trying to identify the unknown agent.

"I'm Agent Alex from the SHD Division, squadron feline! But you guys can call me gummies." he said with which me and Bishop could both assume was a smile underneath his gas mask. He was a little shorter than I was, but seemed a bit older. His hair was dirty blonde but was turning slightly brownish from the smoke and soot from the fires. In his hands he carried a black colored Styer AUG rifle, that, again, had orange stripes and patterns running along the design of the gun, he had a silencer attached to the end of it, along with a bipod that was folded, a small PSO-1 Russian telescopic sight, and canted ironsights, a typical DMR build. His side arm was an all black FN 5.7 that seemed had yet to be colored. He didn't carry a second primary however, just the two guns, probably to reduce the weight on himself.

"What happened to your squad? Where is everyone else?" I asked, wanting to know why the stray agent was by himself.

"My squad is dead, I was coming here to regroup with another squad that was meeting up at a local church, when I saw the burning mall, I decided to check it out for myself."

My mind clicked together, I came to realization that this man was trying to regroup with US. "We are tha-" more gunshots cut me off from my sentence. Agents Bame and Pat were just on the other side of the room, and more bad guys kept walking into the crossfire. But something was off, they weren't shooting at us, or our squad leaders, they were shooting at something else. It didn't take long for them to get gunned down either, another cleaner walked out of a room, and man was this motherfucker big. Instead of an AK, this giant was carrying a big RPK with a flamethrower attachment.

"What the fuck...they are shooting each other?" I asked looking over to Bishop who was in just as much awe as I was.

"What are you guys doing here?! We gotta get out! Now!" the giant cleaner yelled before kicking down the exit doors to the catwalks outside "Move!" Bame and Pat nodded their heads and hopped over their cover, me, Bishop, and Alex...er, Gummies followed close behind. Just as we all made it through, the ceiling began collapsing. Pat only stopped for a moment to look up before being crushed by a giant pile of burning rubble.

"PAT! NOOOOO!"


End file.
